The advent of 5G is one most people around the world is waiting. Many speculations have been made about the wireless network and these only increase the excitement. Phones such as the Huawei Mate X and Samsung Galaxy S10 5G are expected releases that will run on the superfast network.

The 5G wireless network is expected to be of great assistance to small businesses, and this will have a significant impact on the business world. The smartphone industry will certain experience a significant increase in revenue. Let’s look at what the future 5G network can mean for your business.

5G will get things done quickly

Businesses that make use of the internet will be favoured by 5G. Online connections and sharing will be faster and improved. A faster Internet speed means things will be done quicker, making room for more work to be done. This will improve the efficiency and productivity of your staff.

5G will favour remote work

Thanks to 5G, remote work will be a trend that will sweep through the business world. Employees currently employed will be able to work from home and still stay connected to the central office. CEOs will have access to the best talent globally as the distance barrier will become unimportant, and staff meetings will be held with the aid of smooth video conferencing.

5G will encourage better business communication

Fast and reliable communication contributes greatly to the rise of a business. It means greater productivity, reliable networks, and better connection to your customers. Videos will play faster, websites will load faster, and complaints can be attended to quicker. As an online business with proper Search Engine Optimisation, people will find you easily and be attended to quickly. 5G network will mean less downtime for websites too.

5G will allow more devices to be connected

Unlike the 4G LTE network, devices can be connected without any form of congestion while using 5G. A hitch-free connection of devices for online businesses will improve the quality of service. The launch of 5G will cause more IoT devices to hit the market alongside newer smartphone models. Harnessing the extra advantages IoT has to offer will help small businesses improve.

5G will create room for real-time virtual interaction with customers

A virtual face to face interaction is one trend the 5G network will bring to life. Businesses will be able to attend to customers complaint via live video interaction, and this will take customer care to a higher level. The needs of the customers are better met when such a virtual connection is made possible. 5G will also enable the creation and distribution of powerful video content for business purposes.

5G will open up opportunities in rural communities

There are some technological innovations yet to hit the mainstream market because of network speed.  Innovations that revolve around virtual reality technology are good examples. With the advent of 5G, these virtual reality devices will penetrate deeper into the market. 5G holographic projection will mean less need for 3D glasses. Office meetings can be done using 3D representation too. It will also mean 4G networks will be cheaper and available for places that cannot afford 5G.

Makes Downloading huge files easier

Uploading huge files on your site will be made a lot easier with the 5G wireless network. That means multiple images and videos can be uploaded in no time. Backups while requiring large data pipes will be made a lot faster too. You will find it easy to upload a backup of your system files, and system data will be easier to transfer from one device/system to another.

5G may be expensive but will lower operational costs

While the wireless network will no doubt be costlier than 4G, it will certainly be cost-effective. The use of a 5G network will lower operational costs significantly. There will be a shift from hardware to software-based network environments for most businesses. Remote work means transportation will be cheaper. Faster network speed means more work will be done, leading to greater revenue.

5G means decreased stress

Working with a slow network is always frustrating and comes with a significant impact on productivity. Employees will find they are less stressed when they have one less issue (network speed) to worry about. The use of 5G will make work faster, easier, and more seamless. Faster networks will also improve the mood of your employees and help foster a healthy work environment.

5G means improved cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is important for every business that is connected to the Internet. This can be made more efficient with 5G. Besides the virtualisation of most monolithic networks, 5G will mean better means of identification. IoT devices connected through 5G will provide website owners with the ability to authenticate users and detect threats more easily.

In Conclusion

The 5G wireless network will have a substantial impact across multiple industries. It will not only make work easier but also influence the growth and development of your business. The benefits of using 5G are numerous, but these few provide insight into what to expect in the near future.

There are many marine MFDs (Multi-Functional Displays) in the market today, each with its own configurations and unique features. Knowing the right MFD to choose for your boat can be complex and confusing.

To start with, there are several well-known manufacturers of MFDs such as Humminbird, Raymarine, Garmin, Furuno, SI-TEX, Simrad, Lowrance, and Onwa to choose from. Then there are technical jargons to grapple with.

To help you choose the right all-in-one MFD for your vessel, here are essential things you should look out for, explained in simple terms.

A Combination of Keypad and Touchscreen

Go for an MFD with both keypad and touchscreen technology. Having both facilities automatically enables redundancy in your MFD system.

In case the keypad of your MFD stops working, you can use the touchscreen feature to operate it and if your touchscreen doesn’t respond to your touches, you can make use of the keypad.

Pinch-to-Zoom Technology

MFDs allow you to display different screens at once, meaning that the more screens the display is split into, the smaller each screen becomes. This is why you need to be able to pinch the screen to zoom so you can have a larger and clearer view of images and charts.

Large-Format MFDs

MFDs come in different screen sizes, go for the large-format, if you have the space for it on your boat or ship. Bigger screens offer better viewing experience compared to their smaller counterparts.

Specifically, go for at least a 24-inch screen MFD.

High-Resolution Display

The ability to see what is on your MFD is probably the most important thing as far as marine navigation is concerned. Choose an MFD with a high-resolution display. A higher resolution display makes images come out sharper and crisper.

If you can afford it, go for an MFD with a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Intuitive User Interface

No one wants to read through entire user manuals before they can operate an MFD. An MFD is a tool you use on the go, so consulting user manual while in motion is out of question.

Furthermore, you don’t want to necessarily go through several training and rehearsals to use a tool that is supposed to be simple to use.

You should know how to use your new MFD the first time you see its console. So, go for MFDs that feels natural to operate.

Wide Viewing Angles

You are not always in a static position as you sail. So, you want to be able to view different screens on your MFD from different positions. MFDs with ultra-wide viewing angles make this possible. That is the type of MFD you should snap up.

Daytime Visibility

The MFD you are going for should be sunlight-viewable. In addition, you should be able to view what’s on your screen through polarized sunglasses.

To put it bluntly, any MFD that can’t be viewed in daylight is essentially useless. This is why you need to factor in a high-resolution display as you consider the MFD that is right for you.

High-Performance Processor

To get an accurate and crystal clear reading on your MFD, you need an MFD that comes with a high-performance processor.

A high-performance processor eliminate buffering and delivers a lightning-fast touch-and-go response when you pan, zoom, move, switch screens, swipe, plot a chart, or issue any command to the system.

Essentially, you should go for an MFD with a quad-core processor. A quad-core processor has four complete processing units. Each of the units runs independently and simultaneously leading to better performance of your MFD.

Waterproof System

It goes without saying that a marine MFD should be waterproof, but it bears pointing out because of the various labeling available when it comes to protection from water.

We have waterproof, watertight, water-repellent, and water resistant. The difference between them is the degree to which they prevent water from entering the MFD system.

Waterproof means the system is designed to prevent water from entering the system by any means. It is the best protection from water there is.

Watertight means the system is designed as tight as possible so as to prevent water from entering the system. Water can still penetrate if immersed for a long time.

Water-resistant means the system can prevent water from easily entering it but not entirely.

Water-repellent, as the name suggests, repels water but does not entirely prevent water from penetrating the system. A perfect example is an umbrella.

Watch out for these labels and go for the ultimate solution, which is waterproof.

Easy Integration with Existing Vessel Equipment

There are several instruments, modules, and accessories to integrate into an MFD. Think of radar, GPS, sensors, sonar, chartplotters, cameras, engine control, and so on.

Ensure your new MFD can be easily integrated with existing equipment on your vessel to create one unifying vessel-wide system. If not, you may need to buy new accessories, which can rack up your cost.

Look out for MFDs with multiple input ports so you can easily plug and network other individual systems.

Multiple-Panel Split-Screen Layout

One of the major attractions of MFDs is the ability to view different screens at once. But there is a limit to the number of panels you can display on the screen. Go for an MFD that gives you the option of displaying up to six panels.

Customizable MFD

The right MFD is one that suits your vessel type and meets your unique needs. So, when buying an MFD, consider how easy it is to customize it to fit your needs.

Streamlined Operation

You shouldn’t have to press several keys or touch many on-screen buttons multiple times to get something done on your MFD. With one touch or swipe you should be able to get to a screen quickly or activate a function and get the result you want.

A well-designed MFD system eliminate many steps it takes to accomplish a task – this is the kind of MFD you should choose.

To wrap up, choosing a perfect marine Multifunction Display for your vessel is not that difficult if you have the right information. With the above essential specifications, making the right choice should be a cinch.

Adventurous colour palettes and gradients

Gone are the days when website designers had to stick to so called safe colours. These days, thanks to improvements in computer monitors and the myriad of efficient mobile devices, it’s now acceptable to use a variety of colours on your website.

Today, bold and vibrant colours are de rigueur. Web designers now fully grasp the function of colour psychology and the wonders it can do for websites. Colours evoke different emotional and psychological reactions in people, so the right website colour scheme can greatly affect how customers see your brand. In fact, about 90% of consumers’ assessment (when it comes to products) is based on colours. It therefore follows that if what’s been seen on the internet is anything to go by, 2018 is the year that the web will be saturated with a myriad of colour schemes, ‘in your face’ combinations and even gradients.

WordPress designers are not left out of the trend either, as many theme publishers and authors are turning out more highly colourful themes.

The rise of video headers

For some years now, the internet has been full of articles lauding the benefits of using videos on your website. Videos are known to have one of the highest engagement levels in web content and can improve your conversion rate tremendously. Not only can a well-produced video keep visitors on your website longer, but it’s also a good way to improve the user experience. That said, videos are not new to the WordPress scene, as their use in WordPress website headers has increased significantly.

Already, there are a number of themes that support video headers and we will almost certainly see a lot more of them in 2018, especially now that the good people at Automatic have seen fit to include a video header in the new Twenty Seventeen default WordPress theme.

Of course, you can also choose from the number of themes that support video headers. However, if you like your current theme and don’t want to change, there are workarounds to help you use videos in your header.

Because of the many benefits, videos offer site owners, it won’t be surprising if many designers begin to opt for video headers on their WordPress website.

Virtual reality will evolve into WordPress

Virtual reality has quickly become a part of mainstream media consumption and entertainment. VR gadgets such as Oculus Rift (and others) have whetted people’s appetite for this type of augmented reality. As if that’s not enough, devices like Google Cardboard and Oculus are being supported by WordPress. In fact, it won’t be surprising to see WordPress themes with features that can fully support VR devices in 2018. Already, there are plugins that you can use to optimise your WordPress website for VR devices such as WP-VR-view, which enables you to experience virtual reality via your WordPress website and Google Cardboard.

The implications for combining WordPress with virtual reality are huge. Once this happens, the way consumers interact with brands online will change. For instance, shoppers can fully interact with a product on an e-commerce website, before making a purchase decision. It also has potential benefits in the areas of sport, real estate and travel. Admittedly, it would require huge amounts of bandwidth, but that is a small price to pay for the level of engagement it would bring.

An increase in Mobile First websites

Back in 2016, the number of internet users assessing content on their mobile devices exceeded the number of those using desktops. This was seen as a turning point on the web; it showed quite clearly that having a mobile responsive website is the way to go.

Mobile friendly websites have been on the lips of internet users for some time now, but with Google’s mobile-first indexing, it’s safe to say that we will see a lot of WordPress websites and themes designed with this principle in mind. This will mean designing websites suited for small screens and then scaling them up to fit larger screens.

In the words of James, technical expert at Domain Names Here: “With more than 60% of search coming from mobile devices, it is understandable that search engines – as well as website developers – should want to develop websites that meet the needs and expectations of these users, hence the focus on mobile-friendly websites.”

If you plan on making your WordPress website meet the mobile first best practices, there are some excellent materials online to help you get started. There’s also a good number of WordPress themes that provide a similar solution.

Micro-interactions

Remember those Facebook emojis that react when you hover or click on them? That is micro-interactions at work. Micro-interactions simply refer to the way elements on your website respond to interactions.

What micro-interaction does is give your website a living feel. Visitors feel like they are actually interacting with the page – not just reading the boring text.

Social media has made micro-interactions popular and WordPress is (as always) catching up quickly. With a simple plugin like Animate It!, you can add different animations to almost any type of content and then specify when the animation will trigger, as well as the action that will trigger it, and so on.

Conclusion

As we move further in 2018, it’s safe to say that we will encounter more trends with WordPress. This is because WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, powering millions of website on the internet. There are people working day and night to see that WordPress provides the best experience and reaches its full potential. So, my advice is to keep your eyes open and adapt to change to get ahead of the game.

Firstly, IT request records are lengthy by nature. Considering your strong business ethics, you can’t keep users waiting.

Furthermore, most users do not want to deal with this, because it’s felt IT departments have too much control and professionals are sometimes perceived as condescending, especially when using unknown jargon in their correspondence with less technically savvy people.

Shadow IT’s disadvantages are well documented. For one, serious security problems can arise due to unsupported and untested technology used by the company in question, as users bypass standard IT security procedures. Secondly, if an employee stores confidential data in a personal Dropbox or Google Drive account, the threat of violation and data protection policies are omnipresent.”

This does not mean much to users who have no direct responsibility for security or applications that sign up to work with other business applications and systems.

Moreover, once the dotted lines in contracts are signed with suppliers, users do not have much interest in managing relationships with them.

As a result, the growth and maintenance of IT in the shadows is a dilemma for users, IT and the CEO. Ultimately, it’s also true that the only lens through which these challenges and concerns are viewed is that of the business itself.

Most corporate CEOs would probably say this:

“The company must be agile, innovative and receptive to constantly changing business conditions to overcome their competitors.

Users are in the best position to understand business needs, so if they can develop applications, this is beneficial. At the same time, companies cannot afford to ignore governance, security, data custody and technology expenditure. A central business unit needs to address this, while the core competency for such a task is clearly IT based.

How Do CIOS And IT Managers Learn To Work Through This New Shadow IT Line?

1. Adopt the End User’s Innovation: Do Not Discourage It

Experts believe that end users feel more comfortable in developing applications without IT knowledge and assistance. This can instill fear amongst CIOs, who are ultimately responsible for governance and security. However, with the help of easy-to-use application development tools, users can quickly introduce new applications to the market.

2. Publish Application Guidelines for End-User Application Developers

One way in which CIOs can inspire end-user growth is through the publication of a series of strategies, aimed at addressing features such as security and governance. The guide could include an IT helpline to answer various questions. This performs three functions:

• Establishes a cooperative relationship between developers of final business applications and IT
• Educates end users on important government and safety standards
• Offers IT (and the company) a more in-depth view of the number of applications that are created, so that they can access a central IT resource portfolio and monitor them.

3. Manage the Portfolio of Business Applications

IT is best suited for managing a company’s general application portfolio. This must include each application, whether developed in IT or by an end user. Each year, an internal IT auditor or librarian must check the network log to review resident applications and compare them with the IT asset management system to make sure they match. In case of discrepancies, you must visit the IT or final business area that created the application to capture any additional information necessary for the application, as well as to emphasise future compliance with a policy that requires new applications to be reported to IT (in order to enter the Resource Management System at the time they’re developed).

4. Be Strict About Governance and Security When You Have To Be

James of www.discountdomains.co.nz stated that “with regular occurrences of data breaches, no company protective of their product and image will be able to take shortcuts in relation to the security and governance of applications and data. Therefore, every organization needs to be strict as regards safety of customers data.”

Shadow IT is a clear risk and IT departments have every right to take a hard line in case of a protocol violation. However, there is also room for temperance. For instance, many end-user applications and reports are created in the context of third-party software that features comprehensive standards of governance and security. An example is a commercial CRM package that offers users simple ways to create panels. These are applications that IT does not need to monitor.

5. Accept the Responsibilities of Supplier Management

It’s known that end users register with suppliers and then forget the agreements they’ve signed. Focusing on business, they are more than happy to cede these relationships with IT vendors, who may worry about SLA compliance. Many CIOs do not appreciate this, but it’s something that they must overcome, as no department handles relationships with technology providers more effectively than IT.

It‘s never been easier have an online presence. You could start your own website in no time, but that’s just half the task. The real work begins in having your website noticed amidst a sea of competition. There are many ways to get your site noticed though – one of which is having your page qualify as a featured snippet.

Featured snippets are a relatively new development on Google, and have so far been one of the most sought after SEO tools of the year. Featured snippets appear as answer boxes, which are the first results displayed after a query is made. As they appear first, they bear a type of seal that seemingly makes them the most desirable result. Features snippets have been observed to garner a substantial amount of clicks, and here’s why:

• They provide direct solutions to search queries
• They appear first, and as such are the most easily accessible
• They are given the space to provide more information than other results
• They appear to have Google’s approval

It is now evident that every brand should be focused on having their pages linked as featured snippets, but this is quite clearly going to be a difficult task. Only the top ranked pages are given the position as featured snippets and there are plenty of other sites competing for this same position.

Getting Your Pages Ranked for Snippets

According to Google, the only qualifying requirements for featured snippets are quality of content and its relation to queries. However, considering that only the top 10 ranked articles are actively considered for featured snippets, you realise the need for top class SEO.

SEO conscious organisations have been considering the benefits of having a webpage featured as a snippet for some time now. This is because it’s an almost instant guarantee of higher traffic, but then a page must already to meet certain standards, which include already achieving a high index rating. Elements that determine a high index rating include:

• Online traffic
• Quality content
• Backlinks
• Page Speed
• Mobile optimised pages

Organising Your Pages for Featured Snippets

1.        Provide concise information

One of the main objectives and advantages of featured snippets is their ability to provide answers to the user, even before the pages are opened. When optimising a page for the featured snippets, it’s important to construct individual paragraphs in such a way that the answers they provide are immediately understood by the user. Secondary information and explanations should be placed in further paragraphs, where they can be accessed if the user needs them. If you use “call to actions” like ‘click here’, it should also contain information that the reader can readily use.

2.        Use subheadings skillfully

Subheadings are your friend when it comes to ranking for snippets; by including a reasonable amount of subheadings, you’re able to clarify the areas of your webpage that provide answers for certain questions. This helps to focus web crawlers and users alike. The subheadings should (where possible) be phrased as questions, as this is very likely the way they will be required by Google users. Subheadings help to order a page properly and divide it into the most important points.

3.        Organise efficiently

When creating content, it’s important to give factual answers that contain all the relevant details. This includes figures, links, images, tables and such required data. A favourite of featured snippets is displaying search answers in list form. This provides the information in optimal structure to users and is a time saving device. The extra details can then be explored by users who want to know them, by following the relevant link.

3.        Structure articles to answer multiple related questions

It’s often the case that an article provides information about a particular topic, as well as many closely related topics. As such, this article is theoretically able to qualify as more than one possible solution for a search query. To illustrate: an article about the benefits of yoga will usually include information on the parts of the body affected by this activity as well. A well-structured article increases its chance of qualifying as a featured snippet, by expanding the range of topics covered.

4.        Use quality keywords in your subheadings

Crawlers that determine the articles used in answer boxes certainly consider which keywords to use. There are several tools that help determine the best keywords that will qualify for a higher search ranking. In the case of answer boxes, the best keywords are often long-tail keywords, which are also findable with these tools. By using these, it’s possible to have your article qualify as answer boxes for more technical or specific queries. Research has concluded that most forms of featured snippets are found using long-tail keywords, as they clearly define the query.

5.        Use eye-catching images

Most featured snippets will include an image. However, it’s not entirely clear how Google determines which images from an article will be included as a featured snippet. To account for this, it’s best to include attractive, relevant, and captivating images. These will grab the user’s attention, which will eventually account for SEO that attracts web crawlers in the long run. If your article is subsequently chosen as a featured snippet, these images will increase the likelihood of your pages being explored.

6.        Check Google to find more questions

Under each answer box, there are usually other related questions listed – each of which when clicked will provide its own solutions. Some of these are easier to qualify for than others, due to their less common characteristics. Checking the related answer boxes will also provide you with ideas for content that will in future generate their own answer boxes.

“Why can’t the software manage itself?”

This is the question that Thomas Kurian, C.E.O of Oracle, stated in an interview that his team asked him almost a decade ago. In 2018, the answer is now, “it can”, in the form of Oracle’s own cloud services.

Earlier this year, Oracle launched the world’s first self-contained data warehouse and is further committed to adding self-control, self-protection and self-repair capabilities through its cloud platform services. Three other autonomous services have now come online: Oracle Autonomous Visual Cloud Builder, Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud, and Oracle Autonomous Analytics Cloud.

Thanks to automated learning, these services perform tasks such as patching and optimization without human intervention, reducing operational costs and freeing IT teams, DevOps developers, cloud architects and even city developers to focus on more creative work.

Oracle Cloud: Get 3,500 Free Hours

“For every $1 spent on software development, companies spend $3 on software administration,” Kurian said. With the vision of reducing this burden and freeing up time for more stimulating activities, Oracle has launched a four-phase project. “First of all, let the software install and run patches and backups, and then let the software take care of capacity management, accumulating IT servers on the fly,” Kurian said. “Thirdly, let the software tune in on itself and see how the queries are executed in the database, then index. Fourth, let it do health management: if the system does not seem healthy, take corrective measures. ”

These early stand-alone systems can also help reduce security risks, because systems are automatically repaired, rather than waiting for a person to schedule time to do so. “The integration of AI and machine learning in these cloud services will help organizations innovate in revolutionary new ways,” this is according to Amit Zavery, Executive Vice President of the Oracle Cloud Platform Development (OCPD).

Three new services: analysis, integration and development

All stand-alone services created in the Oracle Cloud Platform decrease labour-intensive effort, update automatically while they are running, and increase or reduce scalability without downtime (autonomous driving). They protect against malicious activity and automatically encrypt all data (self-protection). And they have 99.995% availability, or less than 2.5 minutes of downtime per month (automatic repair).

Beyond this, each of these three new services has been optimized for your audience.

Oracle Autonomous Analytics

For example, Oracle Autonomous Analytics Cloud helps business users discover ideas by asking questions without the need to write difficult requests. The Analytics Cloud translates requests into back-end queries; using natural language processing, then creates detailed views of responses. All the time, you are learning from those interactions to proactively suggest ideas and reveal hidden patterns.

Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud

With the Oracle Autonomous Integration Cloud, helping to integrate the scrub of the systems in which companies operate, a problem that is becoming increasingly complicated, can be done using machine learning. “The problem we are solving is making it easy to quickly map these endpoints,” Zavery said. It is crucial to find out which scheme is assigned to which other scheme in their SaaS applications, so as to provide many pre-packaged connectors, so customers do not have to do much coding.” Extraordinarily, Autonomous Integration Cloud absorbs multitude-tracked data from all implemented incorporations before making visual endorsements of how to connect objects across different systems.

Feeding the Beast

And, finally, there’s the challenge of feeding the beast: Keeping up with the insatiable demand for web apps and new mobile services. Oracle Autonomous Visual Builder Cloud ensures a less complicated process both for developers and commercial users, offers multi-platform smart applications written in HTML and JavaScript with code generated by WYSIWYG tools including Apache Cordova, Oracle Swagger and JET. Visual Builder Cloud Service, similarly, has stand-alone functionality to eradicate pedestrian tasks, so that focus can be shifted to the designing, creation of prototypes and launching of your app. Just name the server and click the button, and VBCS is configured in the database, on the host and on the full development platform. Publishing a mobile app is just as simple: just one click to package the code for iOS and / or Android.

Learn more about the standalone services of the Oracle Cloud Platform

Do professional developers want to use a visual encoding tool? Oracle believes that visual code productivity can now provide developers with their own custom code for richer behavior. “While VBCS automatically generates the codes for you,” said Shay Smeltzer, Director of Product Management at Oracle. Experts at Umbrellar Cloud Hosting stated, “Essentially, a skilled programmer views autonomous VBCS as an avenue that eliminates boring coding and allows them to focus on the most challenging part of development: implementing unique capabilities for their organization.”

Make artificial intelligence trivial

Oracle announced not too long ago that it plans to launch other independent services towards the end of the year, with a focus on chat bots and mobile devices, security, block-chain, proper data integration and administration, and extra database assignments, including OLTP.

And they also expect more autonomous tools to help developers. “We are trying to get more benefits to help mundane tasks,” Smeltzer said. “So take for instance, one of the ideas we are working on is the possibility of scanning an image with a theoretical outlay of a page and creates the HTML to execute it for you.”

Illegitimately acquired backlinks: Multiple backlinks to your webpages is a guaranteed way of improving your site’s SERP. Towards this end, many web publishers go to extreme lengths to have others link to their pages. However, many of these are considered dirty tricks. One of the more heinous black hat SEO techniques is when one website pays another to post articles containing their links. If discovered, either website could face any of a number of penalties. This was the case in 2011 with JC Penny, when it was discovered they were paying for links. Therefore, rather than using dirty tricks to improve SEO and risking reprimand, it’s better to simply create quality content and wait for people to link to your site.

Doorway Pages: These are pages created to trick search engine spiders into giving a website higher index ratings. For instance, users can input search queries and receive results leading to a particular site; however, this result will lead nowhere or to a totally unrelated page. This happens because these pages don’t really exist and will never actually be seen by users; they are put in place to make search engines think that a site has higher traffic than it does. Google’s regular updating policy has been targeted at eliminating these types of search engine results, and can lead to your site being labelled as spam and subsequently banned. This was the case with BMW, who were banned in 2006 for their doorway pages. Consequently, you should strive to find out if you have any such pages and work towards removing them.

Keyword Stuffing: Anyone vaguely familiar with the algorithms that determine SERP will understand the importance of keywords to SEO. Keywords provide search engines with a fair idea of what a page contains. A well placed keyword will make all the difference between whether or not your page will rank highly within search engine results. Previously, people would take advantage of this by adding multiple mentions of keywords to an article in order to attract search engine spiders and have them award higher index ratings. Since the advent of synapse search, SEO organisations have recognised this is an outdated technique which no longer has any positive effects on a page’s search engine ranking. For a while now, Google’s algorithm has adjusted to other means of determining a page’s relevance, beyond the frequency of a keyword’s mention.

Hidden Text: This is yet another underhanded way of attracting search engine crawlers. It involves including unrelated texts or links (often multiple times on one page) in a way that isn’t obvious to users. This is of course a major violation of terms implemented by Google and undertaken by adding unrelated links or texts; changing the font to white; setting it against a white background; having the font reduced to zero; hiding the picture behind other images; or any number of similar underhand ways.

In many cases, those hiding texts in their pages are found and labelled as spam or other actions that subsequently lead to huge drops in page rankings. For this reason, it’s a good idea to ensure any information contained within your webpage is displayed conspicuously, to avoid being labelled as spam.

Duplicated or Slim content: Creating content isn’t easy, especially when a site is considered stale, simply because content is not updated daily. To attract traffic, a publisher must try to cover as many subjects as possible and at regular intervals. Older posts are often relegated in favour of newer ones and search engines won’t rank your page highly if it’s not closely related to the search word or phrase in question.

To get past this, many website publishers will simply copy content from older posts and republish them, in the belief that this isn’t plagiarism, seeing as it’s from the same website. This is not the case though, as Google has taken steps to prevent its crawlers from giving high indexes to posts with identical copy or too closely related.

Equally unfavourable is the practice of creating articles which feature little or no content. This is carried out so that pages appear in search engine results for queries, whilst sidestepping the process of actually creating content. Though this might be difficult, it’s best to take the time and effort to create adequate and original content. This might require help, but it will surely pay off with increased traffic.

Cloaking: This is a technique whereby a webpage is altered so that the content displayed to users is different from that seen by search engine crawlers. Again, this is undertaken mainly as a way of obtaining higher indexing. In these situations, the search engine crawlers checking the page are redirected to another page that contains content worthy of a higher rating.

Often, users will be directed to pages with an overabundance of ads and hidden links, which would otherwise have left the site with a much lower index rating. Cloaking your webpages will often lead to your site being banned from Google.

WordPress is the most prominent CMS platform in the world and powers over 19 million websites on the internet. WordPress is popular amongst web designers, as it provides lots of customisation options and is extremely easy to use. Because of the popularity of WordPress and the type of businesses using it as a platform for their online presence, many hackers and spammers are also taking an active interest in compromising its security.

Thankfully, WordPress is always on top of its game when it comes to updates and security. However, there are also things you can do at your end to make your WordPress installation more secure.

This article covers a few steps you can take to keep your WordPress installation secure.

Work with a secure web host provider

Your first consideration when creating a WordPress site is choosing the right hosting provider. One of the easiest ways for your WordPress website to be compromised is via an unsecured host. This is why it’s important you choose a WordPress web host that has adequate security measures in place before thinking of installing security plugins.

Many of the safeguards undertaken at the hosting level can be more effective than whatever actions you take; at the very least, it will help to complement your security measures. A good WordPress webhost has efficient hardware firewalls in place to prevent intrusions, DDoS attacks and other forms of website compromises.

A good website host also implements a reliable backup that can help you recover damaged files in the event of any security incident. If you’re just starting out with your WordPress website or feel that your current web host is not secure enough, you may want to visit the Open host website to explore more secure hosting solutions.

Stay on top of updates

As earlier pointed out, WordPress is to a large extent reliable to go when it comes to security.  A lot of thought and hard work goes into the development and packaging of software to make it safe enough for anyone to use. However, hackers and spammers are always looking for new ways to compromise WordPress websites.

Thankfully, the folks over at Automatic know this and are regularly introducing security updates and patches to protect websites from these new threats. However, that a security update is released does not mean your WordPress installation will automatically become secure. You’ll need to play your part by keeping an eye out for security updates and making sure you apply them to your WordPress website accordingly.

Therefore, always stay on top of security updates for your WordPress core,themes and plugins. This way, you can quickly plug any loopholes that can compromise your website.

Watch where you download from

One of the advantages of WordPress is the ability to customise your website at will. In your quest to have the website of your dreams, you’ll definitely try out a series of plugins and themes until you get what you want. Unfortunately, this is another way by which intruders can gain access to your WordPress website.

Most of the plugin and themes you come across contain codes that can easily compromise your website, putting you at the mercy of spammers and hackers. It is therefore crucial that you only download and install codes from a publisher or author that you trust. Preferably, use only files from the official WordPress themes and plugin repository.

If you don’t find what you want there, thoroughly research the theme or plugin you want to install and read what other users have to say about the publisher before you download and use on your WordPress website.

Once you’ve taken care of the above listed segments of your WordPress website security, you can complement this further by installing security plugins. There are hundreds of plugins, designed primarily to help keep your WordPress website secure. In the remaining section of this article, we’ll cover a few plugins you can install on your WordPress website to improve security.

WordFence Security:

WordFence Security is one of the most popular security plugins for WordPress. It provides powerful protection solutions, such as a secure login features, incident recovery tools and robust insights into traffic trends and hacking attempts. WordFence has a free version that comes loaded with impressive features. However, there is also a premium version that cost roughly $99 per website every year. The inbuilt spam filter in WordPress security removes the need for a separate security plugin.

All in One WP Security & Firewall:

All in One WP Security and Firewall is a user friendly and comprehensive WordPress security plugin that adds a lot of security to your website. This security plugin provides an easy to use interface and clear to understand graphs that show you the security strength of your website and what you can do to improve its security level. All in One WP Security & Firewall protects your WordPress website by preventing forceful logins, enhancing user registration and protecting your website’s database. Best of all, the plugin is free.

Bulletproof Security:

Bulletproof security is another efficient security plugin for WordPress that secures your WordPress admin folder and the root of your website with one single installation. It also offers protection against SQL injection, CSFR and other forms of database and website intrusion. Bulletproof security plugin comes in both the free and premium versions and provides a simple one-click installation, despite its robust security features.

Google Two Factor Authenticator:

Despite the impressive security features included in many security plugins, none come with a hardened security feature for user login. This is what Google Two Factor Authenticator Plugin aims to correct. This plugin adds an extra layer of security to your login module, making it practically impossible for unauthorised users to have access to your WordPress admin area.

This plugin works by sending an authentication to your phone that you need to use in order to login. This way, your login becomes impenetrable, as only you have access to the device where this authentication will be sent. The only downside to this plugin is that it may be difficult to log in using a mobile device. Google Two factor Authenticator is free to use and very easy to install and understand.